Thunderbird email account set-up problems

[Beemer]

I currently use Outlook but thought I'd give Thunderbird a try. I downloaded it and imported my address book and emails, but I can't seem to get it to import my settings for the email accounts. No problem, I can add them manually - except I am having trouble as I have two email accounts with two different servers, but with one I have two email addresses and with the other I have six - and the Paradise one with six aliases uses the same username for each. When I try putting in the same username it tells me that name has already been used. I have tried using the first part of the email (as in my.name) and also the full email address (my.name@paradise.net.nz) but nothing has worked. I gave up in the end and thought I'd just try setting up the one email account (my main email account) and send an email to another address to see if that worked, but it keeps prompting me for my password (which I repeatedly enter) and then I get a message that says "Sending of message failed. The message could not be sent because connecting to SMTP server smtp.paradise.net.nz failed. The server may be unavailable or is refusing SMTP connections. Please verify that your SMTP server setting is correct and try again, or else contact your network administrator."

I have checked the settings and tried all different settings but nothing works. Has anyone else experienced this problem and does it mean I am stuck with Outlook? I have Gmail but don't like the interface for everyday use, which is why I use Outlook. Can Thunderbird cope with multiple email aliases on one account or not?

Any advice would be welcome.

[pctek]

If they are aliases it doesn't matter because all the mail would com into the main email accounts inbox.

If they are in fact separate emails, then you can add more than one account.
Which is it?

[zcc]

Key question... does any ONE of your email accounts send/receive in thunderbird yet?
Remove all others and try ONE.
If it fails then your account settings need to be fixed, including ports etc, you say you have done this, but it can be the only source of your problem.

[linw]

For the SMTP problem, make sure that 'Use name and password' authentication is not checked. Checking this will give the issues you see (how do I know? Not telling!!).

Frankly, if you are using Outlook happily, just continue.

[Safari]

If your internet connection is not with Paradise you will need to use the SMTP server of your ISP to send emails.

[Beemer]

Thanks everyone - I have two email accounts, with one alias on one, and five on the other. With the Paradise one, all the aliases have the same username and password - will need to work out how to uncheck the authentication bit as I didn't see any option for doing that.

pctek - with Outlook I currently have the facility to send mail from all the aliases, which is what I was trying to do with Thunderbird. I realise all mail comes into the one inbox/account, but I need to be able to send emails from the different addresses and this is where I struck problems.

I tried setting it up using ONE email account but it still gave me that same message, so I think I'll stick with Outlook as I haven't had any major problems with it.

Safari, had put in different SMTP server addresses for the two accounts, but to no avail.

[Ofthesea]

Hi Beemer. I have Thunderbird set up to retrieve emails from a Gmail account and from an xtra account. They can/could recieve emails using various aliases.
I can send using any one of three accounts, you can set up any alias like that for sending quite separately from how you recieve emails. Plenty of info on Google ...
ZCC summed it up nicely - just set up one account in Tbird first.
If you need info on how to do any of that can you re-post saying what you want to do.